Jim Johnson

1. Jim Johnson Smith College Department of Exercise and Sport Studies

2. Developing Young Athletes to reach their Potential

3. Injury Prevention • Injuries result in reduced practice and loss of games. • $$$ • Injuries can be career ending. • Many injuries result in long term problems—osteoarthritis. • Injury Prevention is the responsibility of the coach.

5. Research on Injury Prevention is Limited Very Anecdotal

6. Random Experimental Trials • Group 1 Group 2 Experimental Treatment Traditional Training Frequency of Injury Frequency of Injury

7. Extrinsic Intrinsic

8. Modifiable Variables

9. Youth are most vulnerable during times of rapid growth. Growth is not linear.

13. As the emphasis on athletics has increased, so has the incidence of overuse injuries.

15. Overuse Injuries are relatively new. Athletes in early days often played more than one sport. But even one sport athletes did not perform specific training on a yearly basis.

16. Can we practice and train while also reducing the risk of injury? Can we practice and train so that athletes want to continue?

17. Injury Prevention • How does the injury occur? Etiology? • Plan your injury prevention exercises. • Introduce it to athletes and explain why. • Supervise!! Waste of time if they don’t do it right—important to place a high emphasis on doing exercises correctly.

19. An eccentric exercise for the hamstring helps reduce the frequency of hamstring strains.

20. Ice Hockey • Adductor muscle strains are common problem in ice hockey. • When hip adductor strength is 80% or less than abductor strength the athlete is 17x more likely to sustain an adductor injury. • Researchers at Lenox Hill hospital in NY significantly reduced adductor strains.

21. Knee--Ankle • Improve Proprioception--Balance • Improve stability • Improve landing • One legged landings • Agility—learn to lower COG—flex at the knee • Improve Hamstrings—backward movements

22. Balance Training—easy to do

29. Overuse Injuries • Year round training/specialization has become common. • While athletes may be more skilled, intense repetitive training can also result in overuse. • Overuse injuries are more subtle, more difficult to detect since there is not one event that causes an overuse injury. • Overuse can be prevented by appropriate training/conditioning practices.

30. Overuse injuries are caused by repetitive stress followed by incomplete rest and recovery.

31. The response of tissues in the body such as bone, muscle, and tendon have the same response as the whole body. Tissues fatigue and recover to become stronger.

34. Overuse Injuries • Overuse injuries are caused by repetitive submaximal loading. • Repetitive stress is followed by insufficient rest. • Muscles, tendons, bones, and ligaments adapt to repeated stress by becoming stronger. • But when there is too much stress and/or too little recovery time, recovery is overwhelmed and tissues weaken. • Damage is the result.

36. Muscles Stabilize Joints

37. Fatigue causes bone/joint stress. • The dynamic stability of a joint is highly dependent on muscle action. However, as muscles become fatigued their ability to stabilize the joint is compromised resulting in increased stress on ligaments. • Muscle fatigue also tends to alter biomechanics, resulting is increased bone and joint stress.

39. Impingement Syndrome

40. Where do overuse injuries occur? Muscle-tendon-bone-connection Stress fractures-often in females.

44. Prevention is the Key

45. Training errors are the common cause of overuse injuries. • Abrupt Changes in intensity, duration, frequency are primary causes. • Rapid progression—especially in pre-season • Lack of planned rest

46. How to Practice without Overuse • Expertise requires practice and repetition. • Can you create practices that involve repetition without causing excess fatigue? Boredom? • Be careful of athletes who are on multiple teams. • Daily, Weekly, and Annual Plans are a necessity.

47. Active Rest • Two to Three Weeks • Athletes stay fit but do not continue with specific sport training. • Cross-train • Plan and Supervise—athletes must be educated that this time is good for them.

48. Weekly • Quantify Practice • Use Hard-Easy schedule • Periodize training within the week.

49. Daily • Warmup • Muscles contract and relax faster when warm. • Muscles and connective tissue are less stiff. • Specific warm-up is important—when athletes are going to perform high speed activities they need to practice that exact activity at slower speeds. • Fitter athletes take longer to warm up. • Static stretching is not a warm up!

50. Decrease repetitive activities • Organize practice so that athletes practice without excessive repetitions. • Train for retention of skill—not immediate gain.